


headlong and headless and shot like a beam (he is a young god, always wearing the start of a smile)

by Whitmanesque



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Hamlet is a drama major, Horatio is an English major concentrating in philosophy, M/M, a silent sort of love which burns transparently tenderly damned, dear me, if you enjoy repression of the literary persuasion look no further, rated L for Libraries, there is a strong and unspeakable bond between them, they Glanced at each other, they talk about books, this is practically erotic from an Austenian standpoint, your chariot of balderdash has arrived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-27 00:29:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18293207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitmanesque/pseuds/Whitmanesque
Summary: “The desire before the desire, the lick of beginning to know you don’t know …”Truthfully, the voice could have been coming from anywhere. Sounded high above. Far up, floating formless and beautiful. Low, without being gruff. Smooth, without turning into a whine.Handsome, Hamlet thought indulgently. Well, maybe.





	headlong and headless and shot like a beam (he is a young god, always wearing the start of a smile)

**Author's Note:**

> (Pre-play. Wittenberg.) Some lines lovingly stolen from Anne Carson.

 

_“The desire before the desire, the lick of beginning to know you don’t know …”_

Truthfully, the voice could have been coming from anywhere. Sounded high above. Far up, floating formless and beautiful. Low, without being gruff. Smooth, without turning into a whine.

Handsome, Hamlet thought indulgently. Well, maybe.

His head had been in a dream. Was always in a dream, his father often reprimanded. His father was right.

But dreaming wasn’t all that bad. Dreams coloured everything. The way Rimbaud could describe synthesia. The way Kafka could describe despair. Unreality as the major chord of a minor thread running through the fabric of his days. When horror befalls so young, what else is left but that?

 _“Kneeling at the altar of broken songs, save your psalms for the isle of Mirth. But no lover lives up to your worth. No lover lives … ”_  

The voice, ghostly, frail, perfect, floats past him. 

Past the dark, oakwood shelves, past the cavernous ceilings of Wittenberg’s library. The windows loomed as rows of looking-glasses that spiraled to the warped, ever-manicured grounds below. Evening had not quite arrived. The last dregs of sunlight swam, rippling as a golden veil. Behind a row of Ancient Classics, the nimble boy perched on a ladder as one might a sparrow in a branch or a maiden in a fairytale. He wore a swatch of mousy hair, prim glasses, and an absent-minded expression that quickly dissipated into a frown. There was a startled pause before the ladder gave way, the tumbling array of books smattering right onto his head and then …

An armful of an angry librarian.

“I …” the boy sputtered, perhaps a year his senior, but hardly looked it.

“You were …”

 _“Working?”_ He offered, wide-eyed, and stumbling quickly out of Hamlet’s arms, looking at him as though he was slightly dull.

Dreaming, Hamlet wanted to say, reciting, singing, looking so delightfully unaware of the world around you. It made you lovely. I wanted to say that, but I didn’t know how to. I’m sorry.

“A little bit of plunging to the sea,” he offered, handing him his glasses back.

“How quaint, Icarus called and wants his origin story back,” the boy snapped, now bespeckled once more, flushing a bit.

 He’s … shy. _Oh_ , Hamlet thought, understanding now, he doesn’t like that I saw him.

“You read well.”

Adjusting his sweater, baggy yet professional, dark maroon with elbow patches, he abruptly stopped. He hadn’t taken that fall so easy. In fact, he looked completely dazed, as though he’d fallen from a height much higher than a few feet.

“Go on. Get it over with, have your fun.”

Now it was Hamlet’s turn to be startled. “Excuse me?”

“I … laugh. Throw me in a garbage bin. I’m tired. The foreplay isn’t funny anymore. Just take your crack and get it over with.”

His eyebrows must have raised comically high. He had to stop himself from saying something far too intimate to a stranger. 

Did Whittenberg enforce no rules whatsoever about hazing? Probably not, if the drama department was anything to go by. He was frightened, he could tell, not just embarrassed. A weight settled in his stomach. The defensiveness reminded him far too much of his own when the threat was coming from his father. 

“Well, I’m late for class, but I--just wanted to say, your voice, it’s um,” _Enchanting_. No, that’s stupid. Don’t say that. “Nice. It’s ...  nice. See you ‘round.”

 Hamlet bolted. His last sight before him the anxious, frazzled, wreck he’d yet again seemed to cause.

 

***

It doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter, Hamlet thought, making the inevitable five flights of stone steps up to the library. Tragedy followed him like a mean dog on a short leash. Tragedy built the cage and made him stay, yelled _Heel_ whenever he tried to fly. Sweetly, desperately, Tragedy became him.

There was the boy. Not singing this time, but perched all the same.

Bird bones, he thought, looking at the way he’d balanced all his weight on one side of the ladder. Bird bones and the flightiness to match.

“Hi, again.” 

The furrow of a brow. A crooked frown. Thankfully, no comedic trust-fall this time.

“We’re closed so if you could just-- _Oh_ , hello.”

His startled nature settled into … observing. His eyes narrowed. The same hard, frustrated, glance from earlier only softened now by tiredness.

“I didn’t get your name.”

“Horatio.”

_Guzuntight._

“And you, Hamlet, enter scene, rebel prince of madness and sin.”

Ha _ha_ , so funny. Wait … he stopped thinking. Oh dear, he knows, too.

“How did--eh, everyone sorta knows, I guess, don’t they?”

“Yes, but not much about you. Drama student. Decisively androgynous. Doubtlessly a displeasing heir to your father’s kingdom, am I right, or am I _precisely_ right?”

“Anything else you’d like to diagnose me with, Hippocrates?”

“More an antique Roman than an ancient Greek, but let’s see … Multiple personalities, bipolar, ADHD, and a healthy dose of neurosis’ to say the least, but we’re not there, no, at least, not yet.”

“Who … _are_ you?”

“Who are _you_ ,” Horatio parroted the question back.

“I asked first, it’s only right.”

“I like books, not people.”

“That’s fair. I like anything interesting.”

“You must eat your way through many things then, no? You must be so hungry.”

But there’s a sort of lean and a give to their banter. The words are never truly argumentative, only seeing how far the other will go to conceal, to snipe, to eventually, show their hand. At last, a smile on either side. Mirrored images of searching foxes who didn’t know they shared the same den.

_“Starved.”_

 

Three hours later they covered everything from Anne Carson to Annie Baker. Walking through the isles of a large, nearly deserted library was never quite Hamlet’s idea of where the night would be going, but there he was. I like De Murier, Richardson, Maso, and Virgil, of course, Horatio had admitted, but he didn’t talk for long. Instead, he asked Hamlet What do you think about this one, and this one, and _this_ , as they passed by the shelves alphabetized from Bradbury to Baudelaire, Palahniuk to Teshigahara, Appleby to Zafra.

“And do you think Guinevere has the right to be so cold, so, pardon my french, ‘bitchy’?” Horatio asked conversationally when they’d finally decided to sit down. In one hand he held a threadbare copy of _The_ _Arthurian Romances,_ the other _The Epic of Gilgamesh._

Hamlet himself had wound up with a rather odd assortment in his hands; the short stories of _Herman Melville, Antigone, Troilus and Cressida_ , _Portrait of a Young Man,_ some skinny volumes of Keats, Yeats, and The Romantics poetry mixed together, along with an index on Cryptozoology which only seemed half-serious about its research. 

He sat across from Horatio. He felt, well, he felt exhausted. But not in a bad way. There was so much to talk about within books and here … was someone to talk to. In-depth. It was like taking a lecture, but better. He was the only student. The attention was good, sure, but the discussion was what made it great, exciting, even.

“Lancelot,” he shrugged, absentmindedly turning a page,  “whether we look at De Troyes or White’s versions, even Steinbeck, always has one thing in common; he’s treated brutally by Guinevere.”

“And why is that?”

“She loves him.”

“Ah, and what do you make of that?”

“Love as a series of tests, unyielding, ruthless--he’s scraping his knees on iron bars and only worries a single drop of his blood will soil her bedsheet. He’s lying dead in a ditch and only worried he’s betrayed her honor and won’t get back to her side. He only misses her as though life itself wouldn’t exist without her presence, let alone her every whim towards satisfaction.”

“And don’t you think she’s asking too much of him?”

Hamlet laughed. “She’s not asking too much. She knows herself. She knows any man worthy … would have to prove themselves because her own heart is so great. The authors know it, too. Anyone would half a brain could see _that_. And that’s why he does it all, whatever she wants, because he-- _Lancelot_ , knows that, too.”

Horatio glanced over at him up again. Unnerving. Exegesis, he called it, the quirk of all academics. Nothing more. Maybe he shouldn’t have made those offhand comments about his family, Hamlet thought, the state of the schools drama department, the self-deprecating remarks about death. He felt as though his current answer had been read with no less closeness than an inked page.

“And if you were a heroine,” he asked, “what act of Love would you need to believe it true?”

But Hamlet didn’t need to wait and think through a response. He knew his reply would shatter everything and said it all the same. Driving people away was a talent when the skeletons in your closet refused to stay there, took to the rest of the rooms instead, and danced as though doom was merely a type of party.

“To be saved, of course.”

A beat. Neither spoke. The barest of glances, wrestling, sparring with the truth that sacrifice is enormous. This could never work out. Not with his past. Not with a house that demanded their weight in blood. Not with a heart torn from the pages of Euripides then doused in Shelley’s erratic, terror-laden scrawl.  

“That’s--that’s a big request, isn’t it?”

Serious. Striking like a gong on a clock tower. His voice hushed as a failed prayer.

Horatio leaned over. He put the book he’d been studying down. The room felt too small. Everything that lie between the pages had suddenly burst forth with violent, resplendent, agony. The face that had only scrutinized, became deceptively earnest, alarmingly tender at the turn of a phrase, the note of distress in Hamlet’s voice.

He reached over, pressing a hand to his cheek.

Sea salt and olives, bitter, earthy, Hamlet thought, a pang in his chest at the closeness. He has the scent of old books and even older times. How strange. How marvelous. How sad when he, too, will realize you’re not any good, only lunacy and vice.

“Size doesn’t matter,” he murmured, smirking, and then promptly cracked open the spine next to him. 

_Huh. Did he just …_

Hamlet didn’t laugh, but the edge of his lips twisted into a queer smile as he leaned against Horatio’s shoulder. Neither no or yes, but certainly something. An acknowledgement that didn’t condemn. They resumed discussing the books set before them.

 

 ***

There was a playfulness to their relationship after that. The months passed in a blur. Nights in the library spent studying, conversing, relaying information in a way that Socrates himself would be jealous of. The surprise at first on the others face, pleasantly revealed hints of the same joy. Oh, it seemed to say, how wonderful, you’re _interesting_. Hamlet wondered what it was like for him, how Horatio’s thoughts took shape. Was it Hamlet burning before his eyes, remarkable, the resemblance, he might think, to all the literary idols he so adored. There was Lord Byron, messy as Hell. A fresh breath of chaos in a world previously built on solitude and boredom alone, though he’d never admit it.  

For Hamlet it became the feeling of comfort, a … well, not entirely non- judgemental person, (no, for Horatio shouldn’t have been Latin for reason, rather, _opinionated_ ) but honest, true in the last form that seemed to exist when the rest of family drama felt like something out of Elektra. A sort of Pleiades. An imagined Patroclus who might be spared sorrow if he kept him at arms length long enough from the damned house he would one day inherit.  

And you’re never standing in the doorway, are you? He thought to himself miserably, before shaking his head. No. _Stop that._ This is school, it doesn’t have to be like that, you’re no longer a child. You can leave for good. You can. You will.  

“Come to give me an even greater headache, my lord?” Horatio intoned as he stocked the last line of books in a shelf. They were lost, he had mentioned, these were where the books went that didn’t fit inside the dewey decimal system. A few second editions from Australia. A bildungsroman untranslatable from its native tongue. A backhand copy of an autobiography from a man who never lived.

The nickname had started a few weeks back. _My lord_ , reverently ironic, a joke at the “princely” title given to Hamlet back home. He despised it, had no want for power, and Horatio was the only one who knew. So what are you a prince of then? He’d asked on more then one occasion, teasing, almost flirtatiously, and Hamlet had always shrugged. I don’t know yet, he’d shoot back, I haven’t quite decided, and they’d eventually switch to another topic. After a particularly long winded soliloquy on his despair, Horatio had offered words of advice and then shook his head, a soothing tone that was much needed. If death entraps you then, he suggested, surely you’re Hades, and …well, I guess that leaves Persephone for me.

Sure, it was to lighten the stark mood, but there was something sort of splendid about the game they’d invented, the jesting names with meaning only to them. An ordinary type of magic. With the penchant for gardening, (and it was true, Hamlet conceded, all the plants on the windowsill; myrtle, juniper, oleander, cornflowers, and poppies shedding crimson leaves the color of pomegranate juice were marvelous) and despite his prickly nature, there was something distinctly alive about him. The way he traced his hands over dusty book jackets and for a moment, seemed to stand in the room with the authors as though they were really there. Old words not just new, but breathing, quivering entities in the palms of modern day scholars;

Transmogrification.

“Only a small one, I know your migraines are frequent enough.”

“Mhm, this one is letting up just fine. I’ve stopped seeing sound. Thank the gods for low lighting in here.”

“Do you wanna leave? We could get out of here if you want. I mean, if that helps.”

 “How salacious. No, I--I just want to rest a bit. Maybe the weekend.”

Silently, they walked through the shelves, meandering back to a quiet spot where students hardly treaded. His reflection in the window stopped him. Vaguely monstrous, forever sticking out like a sore thumb in his families pictures. The circles under his eyes, gaunt, hollow, hurting even when he, on the rare occasion, did get enough sleep. Horatio, almost disappearing beside him, blended in with the beige edges of books, as though he was made of air. What an odd juxtaposition.

If that. Are we too alike or too different, he thought, as they sat down, and who gets to decide that, really, who could ever know someone else at all?

Hamlet crossed his legs and was about to reach over for a book, but Horatio, in some rare display of vulnerability, leaned on his arm. No, not just leaned, _curled_ around. The glasses slid down the bridge of his nose. He looked … young.

Jeez, he thought, swallowing his fondness down, he must have taken a particularly strong painkiller today.

Bending a little, he brushed a loose strand of hair out of his eyes.

 Horatio permitted the action. Made a noise of contentment in the back of his throat, even. Hamlet tried again, lower this time, leaning a hand on his cheek. Gently, he traced from his temple to the side of his jaw. They stayed like that for a while. Resting. Allowing a semblance of tranquility to fill the space they inhibited. After some time, Horatio looked over, eyes holding Want sharp as thorns.

Oh, Hamlet thought as he leaned down, threading his fingers under his chin, tipping his head up slightly.

“Don’t,” Horatio breathed out suddenly, a thin warning, the crackling page on the brink of being turned.

“Why?”

Don’t what? He wanted to ask, to beg; am I wrong about you, about us, about everything. Don’t kiss you, don’t love you, don’t need you, but it’s already too late for that and I haven’t found a moment when I didn’t long for your scrutinous, reassuring gaze.

“I--you’ll disappear.”

“Doesn’t it usually break the curse, not start one?” Hamlet tried to joke, but the lightheartedness fell through. He could have asked the very same question.

“This is different. You--you’re different.”

“Is that … a bad thing?”

“No, _no_ you … you’re the swoony type. Long hair, bedroom eyes, cheeks like wine. It’s just--when I sleep, you’re there, sometimes. Like a shadow in the corner, an omen of sorts, if that makes any sense.”

“You think you invented me, a dream, a …  ?” _Don’t say ghost. Don’t bring this back to death._

“I’m saying, if I didn’t,” he replied softly, turning away. “I’m in real trouble.”

The echoes of the library stung, unbearable.

This would have to be slow, then, Hamlet thought somberly, removing his hand from Horatio’s face, breakable as everything had been between them. I don’t know who hurt you before, he wanted to say, you who open so cautiously it’s as if you don’t open at all. You who have been teetering so quietly through the valley of life, complete and unnoticed. Yes, even a kiss would be slow, reluctant, perhaps, but charged. Maybe they would chase one another, always coy and smarmy, until someone gave in and went too far; touched a wrist longer than possible, took a step forward and stayed, pressed their lips together, maddeningly tender, and learned, like magnets, there was nothing left to do but give in, fumbling with each others mouths until heat blossomed indefinitely.

How things had changed since they met. Horatio carefully scouring for grammatical errors, offering his ideas, staying up late, providing some kind of literary left-hand man to his scripts and drama critiques. If he was feeling up to it, he’d deposit chapters of philosophy books, bits of poems onto Hamlet’s lap, wanting integrity over praise, looking for attention to structure, form, a means to improve. No, it wasn’t just the working relationship. Of course, there was more; conversations which had no end, wrapped around their days spent studying, roaming the streets of Denmark, or simply wandering the halls of the university itself. Volatile subjects which were approached with blunt gentleness and quiet honesty. Miserable subjects where tears were not hid, but rather commiserated. Wishful subjects that were sung out between them as equal parts reverie and yearning.

Companionship, Hamlet thought, a friend. And yet … while he didn’t expect to know everything about Horatio, he knew there was more than what he'd been told. To be saved, he had answered a few months back, but Horatio never asked for saving, not once in their time together. Had avoided the subject entirely. What did it mean to be saved, he wondered then, was every act of saving so blatant as what he had meant. What could someone like Horatio need saving from, or rather, what did he seek?

“What is it?”

He recalled snippets of what Horatio had said; hyperfixation rambles, half-made up stories, and anecdotes mostly connected to books. There was more. There had to be. But he didn’t speak of it. No. What lie underneath was all wound.

“Pardon?” Horatio’s voice waifed over. He looked down, still.

“You talk and I talk … but I know nothing about you. Well, not nothing, but you know what I mean. You know _all_ about my mother, Ophelia, my, ugh-- _the king_ and his rotten brother… but I--what about you. Horatio, what can I do, show me, please.” 

Horatio shook his head. He didn’t look up. Hamlet saw him move, a vague shift, a tremor of his shoulders. Crying, he thought, he’s crying, but--but why. Did I--oh, what did I say wrong this time?

He was about to apologize, another _Sorry_ already pursed on his lips, when Horatio stirred. Tightening his grip on his arm a little, he looked up, beaming. His expression was one of which he might have had upon discovering a rare edition of _Paradise Lost_  amongst the shelves.

Hamlet searched for the words he might say; would they be admonishing, praise, a confession of some sort?

But Horatio only stared, didn’t speak, didn’t move, and by extension, Hamlet didn’t dare to, either. No exhale. Just a gaze, a tightrope strung over canyons of unnamed feelings, without trying to cross them. What can I do, Hamlet had asked, and he waited for the answer, breathless and reverent. Then, as if by some supernatural force, Horatio turned silently, fluid as starlight, slipping forward into his arms. A delicate, tentative, embrace that might last a lifetime.

A tableau of what it means to be Found.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Comments and kudos are really appreciated. I'm always very nervous about posting writing. @victorian-twink


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